Supercommunicators | 2. How to Communicate Without Words

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why is it that we can tell someone “I’m totally fine!” and they instantly know we’re not? Gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and other subtle nonverbal cues play a huge role in how we connect with one another. In this episode, host Charles Duhigg explores how we communicate without words, including a deep dive into the visual and tonal cues embedded in one of the biggest sitcoms of all time, The Big Bang Theory. He talks with Dr. Dustin York, a professor at Maryville University who studies nonverbal communication and worked in public relations for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. He also sits down with Dave Goetsch, a co-executive producer and longtime writer for The Big Bang Theory, and journalist Jessica Radloff, who wrote an exhaustive book about the show. This Slate miniseries dives into the art and science of meaningful conversations, inspired by Duhigg’s bestselling book, Supercommunicators. Supercommunicators was produced by Sophie Summergrad and Derek John, who also did the sound design. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I heard about the Big Bang Theory and I told my agent, I was like, just please get me a meeting.
0:07.1	And I met the showrunner.
0:09.3	And I told him, you know, I love nerds and I am so passionate about this.
0:16.1	This is Dave Getch.
0:17.5	And these days, he's a very successful TV writer.
0:20.4	But two decades ago, when he was
0:22.0	essentially completely unknown, he was trying to get a job on a sitcom about a group of characters
0:26.8	who were very, very awkward. So it was helpful that he was a little awkward himself.
0:32.8	And then I told the story that when I was in college, I had a costume party dressed up as the Doppler
0:39.3	effect.
0:40.1	And so I was like in all black and I had these white stripes that got tape, they got father
0:44.6	apart and they ran out in the room going, wow.
0:47.7	And that, they were like, okay, you're nerd.
0:55.5	Whether it was because of this deep nerdiness or because he was, you know, a good writer,
1:00.8	Dave got the job.
1:02.3	And he became one of the first hires on a brand new sitcom named The Big Bang Theory.
1:06.9	And if you've heard of the Big Bang Theory, and it's almost certain you have,
1:10.2	unless you haven't watched TV in the last two decades, then you know that it is one of the most popular sitcoms in history.
1:16.6	Over its 12-year run, the Big Bang Theory earned 55 Emmy nominations. It was one of the longest running TV shows in history, lasting longer than cheers, friends, or even mash.
1:29.5	When the show finally went off the air in 2019, 25 million people tuned in to watch the last episode.
1:37.6	But back in the mid-2000s, when Getch and the other writers were trying to figure out how to make this show, they confronted this very basic problem.
1:45.9	The show is about a group of physicists and engineers who are constantly befuddled by how to communicate with anyone who's not a scientist.
	...

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